Keep My Feet on the Ground
by ReavansMask
Summary: Herah Adaar was just another outcast Qunari mercenary until gaining the mark. It's a good thing she's got new friends, and maybe the love of a foul-mouthed elf to see her through this mess. A series of short pieces mostly covering off-screen moments during Dragon Age: Inquisition and featuring an eventual Female Inquisitor/Sera romance, plus some Hawke/Merill and Warden/Leliana
1. Unlikely Heroes

**So, I just finished playing DA: I and I wanted to change up from my usual Mass Effect stuff and write a bit for this fandom. To those who are familiar with my other work, this story will be in the vein of something like the Other Side: a series of short pieces running parallel to the game and expanding on off-screen moments and character thoughts. Warning: there will be femslash smut as well as spoilers for all three Dragon Age games.**

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><p>"What the fuck am I supposed to do now?"<p>

Herah Adaar slumped down, taking a seat on the low wall next to Varric's tent and burying her face in her powerful hands. Even seated, she remained taller than the dwarf, but right then, she wished their roles could be reversed. She'd get to be the easily over-looked jester and Varric, well, he could take a shot at being whatever it was that people thought she was.

"What do you mean, Horns?" From somebody else, the nick-name could have seemed mean-spirited, but even though they hadn't known each other very long, Herah could tell that wasn't his way. Unlike most of the people here at Haven, Varric knew what it was like to be marked as an outsider by your appearance.

"I mean, what am I going to do about this?" She held up her hand and the green energy of the mark sparked into existence, her body tingling as the electricity ran up and down it's length. "Or them?" She swiveled her head, indicating the people that filled the growing camp: soldiers and refugees, farmers and spies, all of them looking to her for answers she didn't have.

"They think that Andraste gave me this thing. That I'm her Herald or something. That I'm going to save all of them from that…" She tiled her horned head up, looking at the massive, angry hole that rent the sky above them.

"You need a hero to fix that. Not somebody like me. I'm…" She sighed heavily. "You know what I am, Varric? I'm a mercenary. You need something guarded, some bandits run off your land, that's what I'm good at." A rueful grin appeared on her face and she laughed bitterly. "All I want at the end of the day is my head on my shoulders and some coins in my pocket. To find someplace where I can have a few drinks, play a few hands of Wicked Grace, and maybe meet a nice tavern maid who wants a girl like me to share her bed for a little while. And I'm supposed to be the one who saves the world?"

The dwarf nodded, seemingly unperturbed by her rant. "Well, what do you think somebody who does that looks like?", he asked

She threw up her hands in frustration. She suspected the question was a trap, but it was one who's outlines she couldn't quite see yet. "I don't know," she replied with a shrug. "Like the Hero of Ferelden maybe. Somebody who throws lightning out of her fingers and kills Archdemons. Not some qunari merc with a couple of knives. Most people see someone who looks like me, they run, or hide, or call me a cow. And now I'm supposed to be their messiah? Does that make any sense to you?"

"Can't say I ever met the Hero of Ferelden," Varric admitted. "If you want to hear the stories about her, you'll have to ask Liliana. Rumor around the campfires is that they used to be close. But I knew somebody else that people called a hero and let me tell you, they're a lot more complicated up close. Don't get me wrong, Horns, Hawke definitely knew her business in a fight, but she didn't exactly start out as the Champion of Kirkwall you hear about in all the tales. When I met her, she was just another refugee from Lothering with barely two silvers to rub together, and those were in the process of being stolen. Her, and her mom, and her brother were all living in this hovel in Lowtown that belonged to her cheat of an uncle, and she was doing odd jobs for some smuggler. A year later, she's set up in a mansion in Hightown, and a few more after that, she's got a statue of herself in the middle of town."

"And a few years after that, the city's a smoking wreck and Hawke's on the run from the Templers. Not exactly an encouraging example right now." Herah had never been there herself, but everyone knew the stories about Kirkwall: how a rogue mage destroyed the Chantry and killed the Grand Cleric, how Hawke had fought to defend the rest of the Circle from Knight-Commander Meredith's wrath, how the war that followed had engulfed half of Thedas.

"Okay, things got a little ugly there at the end," Varric admitted. "But that wasn't Hawke's fault. She saved the city from a qunari attack, killed demons, hunted down crazy necromancers, and did about a hundred other things even I couldn't make up. Sure, she could do a bit of the lightning throwing, but you've got that trick with your hand going for you instead. Sort of evens out, I suppose. My point is, heroes don't always look like heroes at the start of the tale. It's the becoming that makes for a good story."

Herah got to her feet, stretching her long legs. She had to admit that Varric had a point, but she still wasn't entirely sold yet. "Does it matter that I don't know if I can do it?", she asked. "That I don't even know if I believe in Andraste, let alone that she made me her Herald?"

"Why should it?", the dwarf asked with a wry smile. "Most of my best stories, I don't believe either."


	2. Aid and Comfort

"Hello, Herah."

Herah Adaar moved surprisingly quietly for someone her size, but Leliana could still pick out the sound of the qunari's footsteps as they entered her tent and without looking up from her papers, she greeted the woman who had recently become central to the fortunes of the newly-reformed Inquisition.

"Hey. I was wondering if you had a few minutes to chat."

"Of course. Is there something you need help with?"

"Sort of." Herah paused, sounding unsure of herself, something she had seemed to be frequently since her survival in the Temple of Sacred Ashes. "They say you knew the Hero of Ferelden," the mercenary said, her words somewhere between a question and a statement.

"Is that what they say?" Leliana turned and slid down the hood of her cloak, favoring Herah with a mischievous smile.

"It is. Among other things," Herah riposted, a matching smile now on her face. The woman seemed to enjoy a good verbal back-and-forth almost as much as Varric, a fact that had come as a surprise to Leliana. A sense of humor was not something she associated with qunari.

"Really? Such as what?"

"That you're a bard," Herah told her with a chuckle. "Or an assassin. Or a priest thrown out of the chantry for deeds too dark to speak of. That you sleep with two knives under your pillow and traps around your bed. That you were the Hero's lover. Or maybe the Divine's. Or both."

She laughed back. For those in her business, a colorful reputation came with the territory. "That is quite a lot for one woman to be up to."

"Well, let's just say that your past is an especially popular topic of conversation around the campfires here," Herah explained. "It's not like anyone thinks Cassandra or Cullen gets up to much worth gossiping about."

"One should not be too quick to assume such things," the bard replied with a sly smile, "But to answer your question, yes, I did know the Hero of Ferelden."

"Were you two close?"

"Close?" _Slim hands that normally dispense lighting and ice run over her chest before dipping down between her bare thighs. It's a different kind of magic Nissa is performing now, but one no less remarkable then that she wields against the Darkspawn. Leliana's body sings under her Warden's touch, her back arching, her skin flush with heat. Later, she'll repay every caress, every pleasure in full, but for now, she just lets herself be lost in the mage's passion._

Leliana drew in a long breath, trying to shake off the memory, hoping that the dim light of the tent had hid the blush of arousal it brought to her body. "Yes, we were," she agreed. "That, at least, is one thing that rumor has right."

"One thing, huh?" Herah cocked an eyebrow. "What about the rest of the stories?"

"There is truth in some of them, perhaps. But only some. In any event, what did you want to know about the Warden?" Leliana always thought of her as Nissa, but she had grown so accustomed to hearing others call her lover by her many titles that they came easily to her full lips.

"I guess I want to know how she did it", Herah explained. "Look, I was in Ferelden at the tail end of the Blight. It was all our company could do just to stay alive in the middle of all that madness. I can't imagine how you'd actually stop it. And now, out there in the Hinterlands, it's like the Blight's happening all over again. The mages and the Templers were tearing everything apart even before the rifts started appearing, and now you throw in these damn demons… Where do you even start?"

Herah sounds overwhelmed as she asks the question and it reminds Leliana of Nissa at the beginning, of they way she was when they first met at that inn in Lothering. The warden had tried to put on a brave face, to act like the world didn't weigh quite so heavily on her shoulders, but as practiced an observer as Leliana had known better. Nissa had made mistakes back them, some small losses of temper, others darker choices that, wherever she is, Leliana knows still bother her beloved. Now, Herah is in much the same position, and the bard hoped she could find some way to help her navigate her way through the fog with fewer regrets.

"You begin with the people in front of you," Leliana told her. "When Nissa and I travelled together…" At the mention of her warden's name, Herah looked surprised, and the bard added, "She was not always the Hero of Ferelden, you know. She does have a proper name, even if it is rarely used these days."

The qunari chuckled and Leliana continued, "When we travelled together, we knew where it would end, that some day, we would have to face the Arch-demon and its horde. But the in-between, the gathering of the army that made defeating it possible, was often a twisted path. As we walked it though, Nissa tried her best to make right the things that we found awry. The boy separated from his family in Redcliff Village. The dwarf girl who dreamed of leaving her home and studying magic. The qunari looking for his lost sword. The deeds that make up the legends are built atop those little moments."

Herah nodded her head, her dark mood seeming to break at least for the moment. "Thanks. That's… I guess it's someplace to start. There's no shortage of people who need our help out there, that's for sure. One thing though… The qunari who lost his sword? What was that all about?"

"That was a favor for a friend actually. Sten was a qunari warrior who fought with us against the Blight. He had… misplaced the blade in a battle with the Darkspawn."

Herah drew one of her daggers and flipped it casually through her powerful but clearly dexterous fingers as she reflected, "It's nice to know I'm not going to be the first qunari to go and do something so crazy as try to save the world."

"No," Leliana agreed. "And even if you were, what of it? Nissa was both an elf and a mage, a combination most people would find even more unlikely in a hero. We are all the Maker's children and he has a plan for each of us."

"Do you really believe that?", Herah asked, holding up the hand with her mark. "That I'm Andraste's Herald? That this is part of some divine plan?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. I believe that the Maker has a plan, but long ago, I realized that it is not for me to know its details. I do think that what happened to you happened for a reason, though."

"I hope you're right," Herah told her, re-sheathing her dagger and patting the bard on the shoulder, "But either way, I'm lucky to have you here helping me out."

The qunari turned to leave, and Leliana smiled at her departing form. Even if it was not the hand of the Maker behind Herah's selection as the bearer of this mark, it was the Inquisition who were the lucky ones, the bard reflected. There was a good deal to be said for the woman whom fate or chance had selected to aid them in this dark hour. The qunari was brave, and capable, and had a good heart. True, she was innocent in many of the things she would need to know in the days ahead, but Leliana would be by her side to guide her. She had already lost one of the women she served under, and failed a second. This time, she vowed she would do better.

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><p><strong>I had initially considered writing all the chapters from Herah's POV, but decided it would be better to get a variety of perspectives here.<strong>


	3. Diversionary Tactics

"Good evening, my lady." Josephine Montilyet smiled warmly when she said the words, rising from her desk to greet Herah as she walked into the small office where the Antivan beauty did her work on behalf of the Inquisition.

"No need to get up," the qunari reassured her. "I'm not here on business. In fact, I brought wine if you have the time for a drink." She set down a bottle of a pretty good Orleasian red she'd scrounged up on the desk along with a pair of cups.

"Much of my business is conducted over wine," Josephine said, mischief shining in her light brown eyes. "But I would love to have a drink with you regardless. Is there something in particular we are celebrating, aside from your safe return to Haven?"

Herah opened the bottle and poured out two generous cups, offering one to the diplomat before taking the other for herself. "Tonight, being alive and in one piece is reason enough," she said with a small smile she only half felt. "It's been a rough couple of days."

Longer than most knew. Her trip through time, if that's what it had truly been, had shaken the qunari more than anything since the day she survived the creation of the Breach. Normally, she might have turned to Varric or Leliana for company, but both of them had been in the horrible future she'd just glimpsed, and neither needed the cold Haven night further chilled by hearing tale of their fates.

Josephine nodded sympathetically. "I am sure it has, my lady. We have all been praying for your return from Redcliff and to see you arrive, not only safe but at the head of the mages was truly a relief."

The qunari returned a smile, enjoying a long drink of her wine as she took in the moment. All her life, people like Josephine had looked right through her, if they thought to look at all. Her race, her social class, and her profession: all of them had marked her as less then them. Now, because of a very different sort of mark, that had all changed. Now, a beautiful, highborn woman like Josephine would gladly share a cup of wine with her, and banter, and tell her how happy she was that Herah was all right.

Indeed, the Antivan seemed to enjoy flirting with her, at times offering playful smiles and sly glances that made the putative Herald's pulse quicken. Whether those little gestures meant anything the qunari was less sure of. The dances of the nobility were a lot subtler than the ones she knew from camps and taverns, and she wasn't sure whether Josephine was humoring Herah or perhaps amusing herself. Right then, though, she didn't care. After what she'd been through, it was just nice to spend time in pleasant, witty company.

"Well, I would've hated to disappoint a beautiful woman", she teased.

The diplomat took a sip of her own wine. "You are too, kind my lady. I am hardly the only beauty here in Haven."

Herah raised an eyebrow suggestively. "We'll have to make a list some time."

"Doubtless." The Antivan laughed, before turning to a more serious topic. "If I may be so bold as to inquire, my lady, what precisely happened on your trip to Redcliff? The reports I heard were most confusing. Leliana said that you and the Tevinter mage, Dorian disappeared into a rift of some kind and reappeared moments later, but more than that, I do not know."

The rogue sighed, weighing how many details she should share of the nightmare she had only barely escaped from. "I saw a glimpse of what happens if we fail," she finally decided to tell Josephine. "Let's just say it's not pretty. Demons everyone, the rifts out of control, not to mention a decided shortage of beautiful women."

"I suppose we will just have to succeed then," Josephine told her with a smile that didn't waver. "But surely it will not come to that," she added hopefully. "We have the allegiance of the rebel mages, and soon you can try and seal the Breach for good."

"True, but that doesn't mean it'll work," Herah pointed out, pouring herself a second glass of the wine. It was quite good, the sort of rich vintage that she used to only be able to afford as a treat, but it had suddenly become a deal harder for her to enjoy it properly. "Besides, there's more to this than just the Breach. Whoever was behind its creation is still out there."

Josephine cocked her head. "The Venatori, you mean?"

"Probably them, yeah, but I don't think they're just the usual clique of rogue mages. They have some leader, the Elder One."

"Oh, such secret societies are often fond of portentous titles," Josephine pointed out. "I have heard of the Silent Master, the Supreme Guide, the Exalted Hierophant, and many others, none nearly so formidable as their affectations would lead you to believe."

"Maybe." Herah shook her head. "I think this guy may be different. Alexius is a powerful magister, and he seemed terrified of failing him."

"Speaking of Alexius," Josephine queried, "I am surprised you showed him mercy. Surely his crimes merited death."

"Probably." Herah finished off her second glass of wine while she weighed the inquiry. "I'll admit, I'm still not comfortable with deciding life and death like that. I mean, I've killed plenty of people but it's different on the battlefield. When both of us have a weapon in hand, that's fair. May the best man win, right? This business of sitting in the big chair, passing judgment on someone who can't fight back, it's harder to stomach."

"For what it's worth," Josephine replied, "I think your unease speaks well of you. For many a nobleman, the opposite is true. They find it is all too easy to take a life as long as they need not risk their own necks or bloody their own hands when they do it. I think such an attitude can make one callous."

"I appreciate that." Herah rose from her chair, suppressing a yawn as she did. "And the company as well, but do I think I'd better get to bed. Like I said, it's been a long few days."

"Of course, my lady," Josephine replied, adding, "There is no need for you to do that," as the qunari began picking up their empty cups. "I can get one of the servants to take care of those after you go."

"It's all right," Herah told the Antivan noblewoman, "I don't mind doing it myself."

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><p><strong>As a quick side-note, when I did the play-through this story is based on, I ended up missing Sera until after In Your Heart, You Shall Burn, which is why she hasn't turned up yet. However, I actually think it worked out quite nicely, giving Herah time to flirt with Josephine first, and set up some dynamics you'll see in the chapters to come. Thanks for reading, and I'd love it if you left you thoughts on this Inquisitor, the conversations, and perhaps what other events you'd like to see covered here.<strong>


	4. The Weight of the World

**Two scenes here, included in the same chapter because they happen around the same time: Herah's thoughts on becoming Inquisitor and meeting Hawke. I was so geeked out when that happened in the game, and I wanted to write a version that gave more of my Champion's story.**

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><p>"Commander, will they follow?"<p>

Cassandra's voice rang out across the massive courtyard of Skyhold, her question implicitly addressed not just to Commander Cullen, but to the throngs gathered all around the former Templar.

"Inquisition, will you follow?"

It was Cullen who made the question explicit, but even before the people answered, Herah already knew what their response would be. She had known ever since the night in the mountains when all that remained of the Inquisition had joined in Mother Giselle's song, and the qunari was not in the least surprised when the crowd roared with approval, giving an affirmation without the need for words.

"Will you fight?"

They cheered once again, and of their resolve Herah had no doubt, not anymore. Whatever could be said of this group, they were not about to surrender. At Haven, an army of monsters led by a creature out of the darkest legends had destroyed their home, and after persevering in the face of that evil, they were not about to give up.

"Will we triumph?"

That was a much harder question to answer, not that one would know it from the answering roar. Whatever the people following her might think, Herah honestly had no idea how they were going to defeat Corypheus. Dealing with the Breech had been hard enough, but going up against this magister, something powerful enough to tear the world asunder… Only a madwoman wouldn't have her doubts, and the qunari liked to think she hadn't gone mad just yet.

"Your leader!"

It was her responsibility to do just that though, and at Cullen's words, the crowd turned their attention to her. Whether she knew what she was doing or not, these people expected her to be the one to guide them through the darkness.

"Your Herald!"

Even though she wasn't really the Herald of Andraste. Before the attack on Haven, Herah had had her fair share of doubts, but now, she knew for sure. The mark on her hand didn't come from the Maker; it was just a piece of Corypheus' magic that had somehow latched onto her when the Temple of Sacred Ashes was destroyed. She was no messiah, only a qunari mercenary doing the best she could.

"Your Inquisitor!"

Except they didn't need to hear that. These people needed her to be their leader, their Herald, and their Inquisitor, and that's what she intended to be. It might not make sense, but right now, there was no one else who could take her place.

Cullen raised his sword to salute her, and hefting the massive blade she had been handed only moments earlier, Herah returned the gesture. The blade was much too big for the dagger-wielding qunari to use effectively in battle, but she understood now that didn't matter. What mattered was that it looked the kind of sword an Inquisitor should hold, and that's what Herah had to be: the strong leader these people needed, no matter what she believed, no matter what it cost her.

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><p>"Inquisitor, meet Ella Hawke, the Champion of Kirkwall."<p>

Varric got out of the way as Herah approached, giving the rogue her first good look at the woman she'd heard so much about. For one thing, she was short, even compared to what a qunari got used to when dealing with humans. Cuter than Herah would've expected too, with her pure white hair tied back into a long braid, but the qunari knew better than to underestimate a mage, particular one with as impressive a reputation as Hawke.

"You know I don't use that title very much any more," the Champion pointed out to her friend, who added, "Hawke, the Inquisitor. I figured you might have some friendly advice about Corypheus. You and I did fight him after all."

The dwarf headed off to the other side of the battlements, leaving the newly minted Inquisitor standing next to the Champion. "We didn't just fight him," Hawke told her, "We killed him. Trust me, I know from dead, and this guy was dead." She shook her head. "It must have been some kind of Tevinter magic or a trick of the Taint, maybe. If I'd realized we were letting him escape…" Herah could hear in Hawke's voice the same weight she was starting to become accustomed to, and the qunari found something reassuring about having someone else who knew about kind of burden there with her.

"How'd you end up fighting him in the first place?", she asked. "Varric was a little vague on the details."

"I guess you could say it was a family obligation," Hawke explained. "Years ago, my father was pressured by the Grey Wardens into helping them strengthen the wards that bound Corypheus underground. Malcolm Hawke's blood was used as part of the rituals that reinforced the seals, which meant it could also be used to break them. That or the blood of his family, which was why these crazy dwarven cultists came after me and my brother, Carver. I tracked them back to the prison, but then we got stuck inside. I figured just killing Corypheus was the best answer to the problem." Hawke sighed. "Clearly, I figured wrong, but there were people I cared about with me in there, and it seemed like the only way we wouldn't be trapped forever."

"About those people you were with," Herah asked, "Varric said you two were part of a whole group back in Kirkwall. What happened to them? Can they help us fight Corypheus again?"

The mage shook her head, a wistful look evident in her blue eyes. "Most of them aren't really around anymore. After the Kirkwall Chantry was destroyed, we ended up going our separate ways. I didn't want them to become targets because of my choices, though I guess that didn't work out so well for Varric, since Cassandra grabbed him up anyway."

"Oh, he seems to be doing all right," Herah laughed. "Frankly, I think he's starting to grow on her."

"He is good at that," Hawke agreed, a small smile breaking through her gloom. "As for the rest, Fenris is off fighting Tevinter slavers, Sebastian went back to rule Starkhaven, and Aveline's still in Kirkwall, trying her best to clean up the mess we left behind. And Anders, well..."

"What was he like? I've heard stories…"

"Compassionate. Angry. Fanatical. Deceitful." Herah can hear the resentment building in Hawke's voice as she recalls the infamous apostate. "He'd told me he was gathering components for a ritual to remove the spirit of justice from his soul, but they were actually for the weapon he used on the Chantry." She tilted her head to the sky thoughtfully. "I don't think there was much left of the man he'd been by the end," she offered. "Or maybe that's what I tell myself. Maybe he'd been that monster all along and I just didn't see it. Either way though, he had to be put down. I'd helped him, even if I didn't know it at the time, and I had to stop him from hurting anybody else."

Herah looked out over the battlement at the people of the Inquisition going about their business far below the two women. Would she face a decision like that some day? Would one of them put her in that kind of position? Maker, she hoped not. This job looked to be hard enough already. "What about Merrill?", she asked, wanting to change the subject from one that obviously pained Hawke, "Varric said you two were especially close."

Hawke chuckled. "Did he now? He must trust you to have given up that much. But yes, we were involved. We still are, really, but she's with her people right now, helping to keep them out of the way of this mess with Corypheus. I've put her in enough danger already."

"And your brother, Carver? I heard he was a Templar."

"Back when there were Templars he was. He stayed behind in Kirkwall with Aveline at first, but I had her move him out of the Free Marches when this all started." She grinned, a mischievous note shining through in her smile. "He's probably mad at me for that like always, but I'm still his big sister and this is going to get messy."

"It already has. Which part did you have in mind specifically?"

She laughed. "Oh, all of it, I suspect. But right now, I'm mostly worried about the missing Grey Wardens. Let me fill you in…"


	5. Mutton and Conversation

"So, you're really the head of the whole Inquisition?" Sera looked Herah up and down as she asked the question, her green eyes seeming to take in all of the seated qunari.

"Yup, I really am," the woman in question agreed, giving Sera a crooked smile along with her answer. "Why? I am not what you were expecting?"

"Heard about you," Sera replied, "But didn't quite believe it. I mean, you're, you know, a qunari, yeah."

"So I've been told," she laughed. "Is that a problem?"

"Nah, no problem," Sera said quickly, "I mean, really not a problem. I just didn't think all the fancy-pants let people like you get jobs like that."

Herah didn't reply at first, letting the elf's words linger in the cool night air. They were a day out of Val Royeaux on their way back to Skyhold and this was the first time she'd really had a chance to talk with the newest member of the Inquisition. Honestly, camp was one of the few places she still felt she could talk to anyone like a regular person. Sitting around an autumn fire, sharing a meal, her new title didn't weight quite so heavily on every conversation as it did elsewhere.

"May I assume that by 'fancy-pants,' you are referring to me?", Cassandra interjected, taking a bite out of the pleasingly juicy mutton that was their night's meal.

"Well, yeah," Sera agreed. "I mean, your pants aren't that nice right now, but even though you dress like real people, I can tell. Voice and all that shit. You grew up in a mansion, am I right?"

"You are," Cassandra conceded, "But I really wish you would not make further assumptions about me on that basis. I, and the other members of the Inquisition, selected Herah to be our leader because she was the best choice for the role. I would not have let petty concerns about her background prevent me from doing that."

"There is the little matter of the mark on my hand," Herah teased before helping herself to a swig of wine from her skin. "Somehow, I think that if someone else was carrying that around, they'd be the one with this gig."

"Perhaps. But I do not believe it is an accident that you are the one who bears it. There was purpose in this selection."

Herah sighed inwardly. Even if she no longer believed that the Maker or Andraste had chosen her, plenty of others needed to think it was so, or at least that it could be. "You might be right," she replied non-committally while returning to her mutton.

"Maker's got good taste, then," Sera opined cheerfully, giving Herah another long glance, this one more unreservedly approving. "I mean, look at you, all tall and built, and… yeah, definitely good choice," the elf trailed off.

"I'm sure he's glad you approve," Dorian told Sera with a smile, the Tevinter mage reappearing from out of the shadows at the edge of the camp. "The wards are set," he told Herah. "We should be able to get through the night without being surprised by the Red Templars at the very least."

"Wards? You mean like magic?", Sera asked, a note of anxiety creeping into her voice. "We're going to sleep with magic all around us."

"I wouldn't worry about it, my dear," Dorian assured her. "They're perfectly safe. Only intruders can trigger them, not the people inside."

"Still don't like it." Herah shrugged apologetically, and Sera gave a little annoyed pout when she realized the wards weren't going anywhere. "Fine," she declared, "Going to sleep now." She shot Dorian a disapproving look. "Don't go putting any magic in my tent."

"I wouldn't dream of it," the mage told her with a wry smile.

Sera headed off to her tent, and Herah turned back to Cassandra and Dorian, offering the mage his own skin of wine as he joined them around the fire. "So, what do you think of our newest recruit?", she asked her two companions. "She seems colorful, certainly." Not that the rest of their group was exactly bland. Even with all her years of mercenary experience, Herah had never been around quite such an unusual collection of individuals.

"I am not certain," Cassandra replied, her tone as blunt as ever. "I agree she has skills and connections that could be useful to our cause, but I am not sure that she is a good fit with the image we wish to present."

"Since when are you concerned with appearances?", Dorian asked mischievously. "Certainly not when you had your hair styled like that."

Cassandra glared at the mage before continuing, "The Inquisition is only now starting to convince the Chantry and much of the nobility of Thedas that we are not a dangerous, subversive force. I only worry that this Sera may undermine that, given that she is, in fact, a subversive."

"Hey, I like your hair," Herah told the Seeker, finishing off her wine.

"And I like Sera," Dorian offered. "I agree she may not be the sort of girl you bring to the Autumn Fete in Minrathous, but that doesn't mean we won't need people from her part of town to win this war." He paused, reflecting on his previous statement. "On second thought, it really might not be the worst idea to bring her there. Two years ago, people said Magister Trajan drank from that poisoned chalice just to break the tedium of listening to Lady Liviella taking about her orchids for three hours straight."

"And you wonder why I cut my hair and left that life in favor of serving the Chantry," Cassandra remarked with a derisive snort, evidently pleased to turn the mage's earlier jape back on him.

"Come now," Dorian smirked, "I think you might look quite fetching in an imperial ball gown, something with three or four tiers of ruffles, and one of those intricate tableaux necklaces that were so fashionable last year."

"Now you are merely making fun of me," Cassandra insisted. "If you really felt that way, you would be back in the Imperium playing dress-up instead of here serving the Inquisition." A weary yawn escaped the Seeker's mouth, and when it finished, she stood up. "I think it may be time for me to turn in as well. We have a long road ahead of us and we need to make good time back to Skyhold. There is much to do before we are ready to assault Adamant Fortress.

"True enough," Herah agreed, rising from the log she'd been sitting on. Her bedroll was sounding pretty good to her to right then, but even as she left the fire, she looked in the directly of Sera's tent and whispered to herself, "I think I like her too."

* * *

><p><strong>And at last, our potential love interest arrives on the scene. Sera's tough to write, so I hope you think I didn't all right with it.<strong>


	6. A Friendly Drink

"So, I heard you were setting up house in here," Herah laughed as she surveyed the scene in front of her, "But I still didn't quite expect this."

Sera's room at the tavern had been transformed, the once-plain wooden walls now covered with a colorful array of tapestries and carpets, scraps of fabric and a variety of seemingly random objects scattered all over the floor and furniture.

"Yeah, pretty great, right," the elf declared, grinning as she admired her handiwork. "Why, somebody complain? That why you're here?"

"No, I just wanted to make sure you were settling in okay," she explained. "You know I can have Josephine find you a room in the castle if your prefer?"

Sera snorted. "Piss on that. Don't like castles. Full of poncy jerk-offs that think they're better than everybody else, locking themselves up nice and safe while the regular people get killed by bandits or Darkspawn or whatever other shit comes along."

The qunari tilted her head, giving Sera a wry smile. "You know I'm one of those people who lives in a castle, right?"

"I'm still trying to decide about you, yeah? But you're not normal castle people anyway." Herah shook her head in agreement, and Sera asked, "You like that, being the big, powerful Inquisitor, lording it up over all those nobles that used to look down on you?"

"Not really," the alleged Herald of Andraste admitted. "Most of the time, it's more weird than satisfying. The truth is, I still enjoy places like this better. Somewhere to have a few drinks, take in the music, maybe a find pretty girl to talk to…"

She shot a grin at Sera, pleased when the elf gave her one in return. Herah had always been a flirt, but since taking up the mantle of the Inquisitor, she'd become a little uneasy about her interactions with the people now under her command. She didn't want anyone to feel like they had to please her because of her rank, especially since she knew that not every woman was going to be interested in a female qunari. Sera, though, she could tell was different. The elf wasn't the sort of person who felt the need to please anyone, no matter how important. It was refreshing, and, Herah had discovered, more than a little attractive.

"Pretty girl, huh?", Sera asked. "Plenty of those 'round here. One of the nice things about this whole Inquisition bit."

"True enough. Of course," she added, the grin remaining on her face, "Some of them are more interesting than others."

"Think I'm interesting?" Sera flopped back on a pile of her pillows and things, kicking up her legs as she asked her rather direct question. They were quite nice legs, Herah thought, lithe like those of most elves, but also well-toned from her athletic lifestyle.

"Definitely," the qunari agreed, finding her own seat amid the clutter. "Actually, pretty girls aside, I find myself wondering if you aren't a little too interesting for a stuffy outfit like the Inquisition. I mean, we've got plenty of rules, and lords, and other stuff you don't seem to like very much."

"Eh, you might be pricks, but your not the worst of them," Sera offered. "I mean, yeah, there's some sticks up bums and all that, but you save people and that's something. More than you can say for most people with castles, anyway. Sides, this Corypheus seems like the biggest fucker out there. All, 'I'm some giant Tevinter god monster arsehole and you all need to bend over and kiss it.' Well, fuck him," she declared. "Arrow in the throat sounds good for that sort and you're the ones trying to give it to him."

Herah smiled. She'd noticed the angrier Sera got, the more she swore, and Corypheus definitely seemed to bring it out in her. "Works for me," the qunari agreed, before noting, "But that's a ways off, I suspect. Meanwhile, why don't we go find a drink? After all, I've already got the pretty girl to join me."

* * *

><p>From across the crowded main floor of Herald's Rest, Leliana watched with interest as Herah and Sera tipped back their mugs of ale, laughing together at some joke the former bard couldn't hear. Her own drinking companion was observing them too, her serious expression marking her as out of place amidst the tavern's revelry.<p>

"What do you think of that?", Cassandra asked her. "The Inquisitor and this Sera."

"She is smiling," the spymaster told her friend, "More than I have seen her do in some time."

"Should her happiness really be our primary concern?" Leliana shot Cassandra a sideways look and the Seeker corrected herself. "The question was harsher than I intended. I only mean that there is a great deal riding on the Inquisitor right now, and I worry that this infatuation may cause her to lose focus."

Leliana took a sip of her wine as she weighted Cassandra's words. The Ferelden vintage wasn't especially good, too sweet for her cultivated pallet, but it held a special place in her heart all the same. Alistair had discovered a case of it in the wreckage of a caravan the Darkspawn had attacked and the group had stayed up half that night, drinking and singing, the wine and their camaraderie taking them far away from the Blight if only for a little while.

She and Nissa were still new to their relationship then, and even sly glances and stolen touches had been enough to thrill them, building anticipation for the moment when they retired to the Warden's tent to make love until nearly dawn. Leliana had been to many exotic places and done many glamorous things, but she still thought that those simple nights in camp might have been the best of her life.

They had also helped get Nissa through the terrible task fate had appointed to her, and that, she realized, was what the Seeker did not quite understand. "It is because of what she carries that she needs to smile," Leliana explained. "Without life's little joys, it's sorrows can crush us."

"I manage to get by without such romantic frivolities," Cassandra insisted. "My faith and my duty are enough."

"It is not the same. To be the one person on whom everyone else relies, who is expected to save the world when no other can, is a harder thing by far then even what we do."

"I suppose you would know better than I," the Seeker conceded.

"Of course, that doesn't mean you couldn't use a little more fun in your life as well," Leliana teased. "At the very least, you should let me take you shopping in Vas Royeaux the next time we are there. Truly, there are no finer shoe shops in all of Thedas."

"Shoe shops? In the midst of all of this?" Cassandra shook her head, polishing off her own wine and pulling out a few coins to pay for their drinks. "Even if Varric were to put that in the book he will no doubt write about all of this, the world would never believe the truth about the fearsome Sister Leliana."

"And that," the spymaster agreed with a satisfied smirk, "Is why my secret remains safe with you."


	7. War Stories

Far in the distance, the great, dark shape of Adamant Fortress loomed, but Ella Hawke was trying her best not to focus on what the Inquisition might find when they stormed its ramparts. After their battle with the corrupted Wardens at the ritual tower, she was certain it wasn't going to be pretty, and dwelling on the possibilities wouldn't change anything. Still, it was hard for the Champion to get the worst case scenarios out of her head, and so she was grateful when the (much) taller woman walking beside her broke the silence.

"So, Hawke," Herah began, "I was wondering something about you and Merrill…"

The mage smiled at the cautious question, showing that bright, winning smile that so many people had followed over the years. "Go on," she urged the qunari, "Ask away."

"I was curious what it was like being in a relationship with somebody under your command. I mean, it feels like it could it be a distraction in a fight."

Hawke's smiles turned more mischievous. "Why do I suspect that question isn't entirely academic?", she asked. "Is there someone in the Inquisition you have your eye on? Maybe a certain blonde elf?" The Champion's gaze turned down the columns of soldiers to where Sera was walking with Blackwall, laughing demonstratively at some joke of the Warden's.

"I guess I'm not that hard to read, am I?", Herah conceded with a shrug. "Yeah, I do like her. And the thing is, I'm not the kind of person who usually wastes a lot of time angsting about that stuff. Life is short, right? Except it doesn't seem as easy now that I'm the one in charge, making the life and death decisions for everyone else."

"You're not wrong," Hawke agreed, her expression turning somber. "It can be hard, going into battle leading somebody you care about that way. I remember when we were trapped in Corypheus' prison, I was scared to death for Merrill, a lot more than for myself. But those feelings can also be a source of strength. Nothing makes us fight harder than the people we love. Besides, even if you steer clear of romance, that doesn't mean your decisions are going to be easy. Most of the people who followed me were my friends and I can tell you've made some here yourself. That can complicate things too."

"True enough," the qunari conceded dejectedly, a frown appearing on her face. "Nothing else up until now has been simple. Why should love be any different?"

"For what it's worth," Hawke offered, "I can definitely see what you like about her. Of course," she added with a wink, "I always did like them slim and a bit dangerous."

That comment got the desired laugh out of Herah, the qunari's gloom seeming to lift a bit. "A bit dangerous?", she asked incredulously. "Varric makes Merrill sound like a real kitten."

"That's what he used to call her," Hawke agreed, "But even kittens have claws." That, and a darkness that the Champion had almost lost her beloved to. For years, their worst arguments had been over Merrill's use of blood magic and her obsession with that damned mirror and it was only when those things had cost her the life of the Keeper and what was left of her relationship with her clan that the elf had finally pulled back from the edge.

"Besides," the Champion added, "Who says Merrill was the only one I was talking about?"

"Really?" Herah raised an eyebrow in mock shock. "I want details."

"I guess there's a few stories Varric didn't tell you," Hawke quipped. "Of course, this one was a little before his time anyway. When my family first got to Kirkwall, the city was overwhelmed by all the refugees fleeing the Blight and they stopped taking people in. The only way to get around that was with money or connections, and since we didn't have either of them, we had to get sponsored by someone who did. My uncle got my brother and I jobs working for an elven smuggler named Aethenril who fit the bill."

_Aethenril was pushed against the wall of the warehouse, her pants around her ankles while her shirt was hiked up far enough to reveal her pert breasts, allowing the mage pressed up behind her easy access to her body. At least for now, Hawke was the one calling the shots. It was a dangerous line to walk with her employer, but as far as she was concerned, that only made what they were doing all the more thrilling._

_One hand roughly tweaked the elf's pierced nipple, while the other worked it's way inside her smalls, finding her enticingly wet to the touch. Hawke's fingers slid everywhere but where Aethenril wanted them most, gliding over her folds but avoiding the throbbing clitoris nestled between them._

"_Fucking get on with it, Hawke," the smuggler growled, her narrow hips bucking desperately as she tried to get the contact she was craving._

"_Since you asked so nicely." Hawke's fingers slid upward and even as they hovered above her lover's core, the tiniest flicker of magic appeared around them. At the unexpected stimulation of her most sensitive point, Aethenril cried out, and Hawke pressed down hard. Her teeth sank into the elf's neck as she felt the smuggler writhe in the grip of her first, sudden climax of the evening. Hawke might have been the indentured servant but in that moment, Aethenril was undeniably hers._

"It wasn't the kind of arrangement that could've lasted long-term," she commented, a sly, suggestive smile masking the heat of her remembered arousal, "But it definitely had its benefits while it lasted." Between her legs, the Champion's sex throbbed, and she tried not to think about how long it had been since she'd had a night like that one. She might have left Merrill out of this mess with the Wardens for the sake of the elf's safety, but right then, she sorely wished that her lover, rather than another session with her own hand awaited her before the coming battle.

"I've been there," Herah told her, her voice keeping the Champion's thoughts from drifting too far into her sexual frustration. "There was this merchant's daughter in Denerim I had a thing with once… all the sparks in the world, not to mention this long, luscious black hair I loved, but I think we'd have ended up burning half the city down if my company hadn't hired out when we did"

"What about Sera?", Hawke asked, "Do you think she's feeling the sparks?"

"Definitely," the Inquisitor told her. "Although…"

Hawke tilted her head curiously. "Although what?"

"She's being a little coy about the whole thing, saying she wants us to get to know each other better before we get too involved. I don't really mind, but it's not exactly her usual style."

A smug grin covered now covered almost the whole of the mage's pretty face. "Oh, you, my friend," she informed Herah, "Are in trouble."

The Inquisitor seemed confused by that. "What do you mean?"

"When the blunt ones start putting you off," the mage laughed, "It means one of two things. Either she's not interested…"

"She's interested," Herah insisted once more. "I've been turned down enough times to know if that's what was going on, thank you very much."

"Well then," Hawke declared, "There's only one other possibility. She's changing it up because she really likes you."

Herah laughed long and hard, seemingly untroubled by the prospect. "You may be right, Hawke," she agreed, "But I guess I'll just have to wait and see."


	8. Fallout

"Why, Inquisitor?!" At the sound of her title, Herah spun around, bringing the qunari face to face with the angry face of Ella Hawke. Like her, the former Champion had looked better, both women still wearing the blood and grime of the battle they'd just survived, but at least they were still in one piece.

"Why what?", she asked, her reply sharper than she wanted it to be. After surviving their trip into the Fade, Herah had wandered away from the rest of the group, looking for some time free from exactly the kinds of questions she suspected the mage was asking .

"Why me? Why not Stroud? How could you leave him behind to die like that?"

"How could I…" The Inquisitor's voice trailed off momentarily as her frustration got the better of her. "Andraste's ass, Hawke," she snapped, "I don't think I've ever had somebody yell at me for saving their life before."

"That's not what I meant and you bloody well know it," Hawke yelled back, dashing her staff to the ground in her anger. "The Wardens needed Stroud, not me. They're a complete mess after what happened here, and he could've helped them to rebuild. What are they supposed to do now?"

"I don't know," the qunari admitted regretfully, running a hand over her forehead.

The Champion threw up her arms in exasperation. "Then why?"

Herah slumped down on a huge piece of broken stone that lay in the middle of what had once been a courtyard. In the deep black of the desert night, even the large qunari almost disappeared from view and a part of her wished she could do just that, vanish somewhere far away from all of this. That wasn't an option though, and it hadn't been for quite some time.

"Because I might fail," she finally said, giving voice to the doubts she felt that only someone like the Champion could fully understand. "I know I've been acting like I'm on top of everything, but I'm not. If I go down, someone else is going to have to take over for me."

Hawke's blue eyes widened incredulously. "And you think that should be me?", she asked. "That I should lead the Inquisition? After what happened in Kirkwall, you really think that would be a good idea?"

"Cassandra and Leliana did. They were planning for it to be you or maybe the Hero of Ferelden, not some qunari nobody had ever heard of. But they couldn't find either of you, and then the Breech happened, and I turned up with this mark that could close the rifts. Pretty soon, people were calling me the Herald of Andraste, and at that point, they decided to just go with it. But it was going to be you, and maybe it'll still have to be. That's why it was you that I got out."

The mage took a deep breath, finding some rubble of her own to sit down on. "I… I didn't know that," she told Herah. "That it was me they wanted. I'm not looking for that kind of responsibility. Not again."

Herah shrugged. "Since when does what we want matter?"

"Seldom," Hawke conceded. "But have a little faith and don't go giving away your job just yet. You're doing fine with this mess. As ugly as it was, we won a big victory here tonight. Corypheus lost his demon army and you even managed to save some of the Wardens."

Herah managed a smile. "Fair enough. Still, I feel better knowing you're out there, just in case."

"I am," the Champion agreed. "It might not be my first choice, but if it came to it, I doubt I could say no to the job, any more than you could. And about before, I'm sorry I snapped like that. I just… I've already lost way to many people that I cared about."

The Inquisitor just nodded and added simply, "Don't worry about it. Water under the bridge."

Hawke got up off of her rock with a sigh, picking up her staff from where she'd flung it. "I really should get some sleep," she told the qunari. "It's a long way to Weissshaupt and I want to get an earlier start in the morning. Besides," she added, "I'm not the only one who was looking for you." Herah raised a questioning eyebrow, and Hawke explained as she walked away, "I think you've got a pretty upset elf to deal with."

* * *

><p>"You were in the sodding Fade?!"<p>

It wasn't long after Hawke left when the elf in question found Herah, and judging by Sera's tone, she wasn't much happier about what had just happened than the Champion of Kirkwall had been.

"I mean, really in the sodding Fade?!", Sera repeated incredulously.

"Uh, yeah," Herah agreed flatly, not sure quite how to respond to the question, "We really were."

"That's not bloody all right," the elf protested, kicking a rock as she vented her concerns. "That's how Corypheus and all those other Tevinter fuck bags made Darkspawn and turned everything to shit. And now you went back there."

There was something adorable about Sera when she ranted like that, and Herah did her best not to smile. "I didn't exactly have a choice," she explained, holding up her hands defensively. "In case you hadn't heard, we were falling off of the top of the damn castle. Using the mark was pretty much the only move I had left other than hitting the ground very hard."

"Yeah, well, you should've…" Sera seemed all set to begin yelling again, but suddenly she stopped, her expression softening as she looked at the Inquisitor. "You should've not died," she declared. "I'm glad you decided not to die. And I'm sorry I yelled at you and stuff, but it was really bloody scary, watching it happen. There was that dragon, and Clarel going 'boom!', and then you all were falling, and then nothing. You were just gone."

"I'm sorry." She reached out and put a hand on the elf's shoulder. 'Trust me it was pretty scary living through it too."

In response, Sera moved closer, pressing herself against the qunari's body, while Herah brought up her other arm to complete the embrace. "I know that," the archer said, her usual fire mixed in with something softer. "Least there were plenty of demons and other rubbish to shoot while we were waiting for you to come back."

"No shortage of those tonight," Herah agreed, "Though I don't usually think of that as a good thing."

"Helped me not to think about stuff," Sera explained. "About what a stupid piss fuck world this is, where people like you go missing, and Wardens get turned in bloody demons, and holes get torn in the sky."

"Hey," Herah assured her, "I know it sucks sometimes, but the world's got good things in it too."

"Damn right it does," Sera agreed. "Like pies. And arrows. And… and horns." There was a catch in her throat as she listed the last item, and the lithe rogue brought a hand up to Herah's head, experimentally running her fingers along one of the wavy, dark horns that took the place of hair atop it. "These are so neat."

The qunari didn't have nerve endings there, but there was still something extremely intimate about the way Sera was touching her and what had started out as a reassuring hug was rapidly turning into something else. Herah was suddenly and highly aware of the way that Sera's leather armor-clad breasts were brushing against her chest and she felt a heat starting to pool in her lower body at the sensation.

From the blush spreading across the elf's face, she knew she wasn't alone. Sera stepped backwards abruptly and stammered, "Getting to know each other, yeah? That's what I said, wasn't it?"

"It was," Herah agreed quickly, aware of a decided hitch in her own voice as well. "How, uh, do you think that's going?"

"Pretty good, I figure," Sera told her, the archer visibly trying to catch her breath. "Starting to think we should move onto other ways of knowing. Better ways. Maybe talk about it once we get back to Skyhold?"

Herah was tempted to protest that they could discuss it now if Sera wanted to, but in the distance, she could already hear the sound of booted feet on stone and Cullen's voice calling out for her, and so instead, she just nodded. It would still have to be work before play unfortunately, and the Inquisitor knew that it was going to be a long trip home.


	9. Buckles

It was a race she knew she was going to lose. Herah Adaar might have moved deceptively fast for someone her size, but Sera hopped over rooftops and slipped through windows like a cat being chased by an angry Mabari. Still, just because she couldn't beat the elf back to her quarters didn't mean Herah was taking her time. The return trip from Adamant Fortress had been wait enough, and as Herah hurried across the courtyard of Skyhold and bounded up its stone steps, she had no intention of extending it a moment longer than she had to.

By the time she finally reached the door that led to her private chambers, (She had private chambers, she briefly reflected as she climbed the stairs. How strange was that?) the qunari could already feel the first flutters of anticipation in her nether regions. She was by no means a blushing virgin, but it had been far too long since she'd been with anyone else, let along someone as intriguing as the woman who was hopefully waiting for her.

Nor was she disappointed. When the Inquisitor reached the top of the stairs, she found Sera already lying on the bed, the blonde elf not wearing a stitch of clothing. Stripped of her unusual attire, there was nothing to distract Herah from her body, and it really was lovely. Her body was slim like that of most elves, but her penchant for acrobatics had left her long legs and a smooth stomach unusually well toned. Her breasts were small, but quite pert, topped by pale, pink nipples that practically called out to the qunari to play with them. And then there was her smile. The elf often bore a sour expression, but just then, she was showing Herah the most delightfully wicked grin of anticipation.

She must have been starring because several distracted seconds passed before Sera asked, "Something wrong?"

"Not at all," she replied quickly, her own smile now growing to match the elf's. "Just hadn't expected to find you quite so, uh, far along."

Sera shrugged. "Got here first. Was bored. Besides, unwrapping you proper will take time, so now you don't gotta do me too. Well, you do. Do me, that is. But not undress me."

"I think I get the idea." In three long strides, Herah crossed the room, and as she reached the bed, Sera rolled up into a sitting position and grabbed the qunari's head for a lengthy and highly enthusiastic kiss. Already, Herah could feel her skin flushing and while their tongues tangled, she took advantage of the embrace to run her hands over the elf's nude body, starting with the curve of her ass and making her way up her back.

"Andraste's ass," Sera gasped, "Those are bloody strong hands. Bet you can do real nice things with those, Buckles." Her own, smaller digits searched out the straps of Herah's leather coat and started unfastening them. "Heh, Buckles," she laughed to herself, "Cause you've got all these buckles and stuff."

It had taken them a little negotiation to arrive at that nickname, but Herah found she liked it well enough and she let Sera maneuver her onto her back so that the elf could better undress her. It was a task her girlfriend seemed to relish, lovingly peeling off one layer of clothing after another, first leather and then cloth being removed so that nimble fingers could run over the skin beneath.

When at last Sera bared the qunari's ample breasts, she let out an appreciative whistle. "Yeah, these are… I mean, I could see, but… wow!"

"I'm glad you approve of…" Herah's voice trailed off as the elf's mouth closed around a brown nipple already stiff with anticipation and her tongue ran back and forth over it, the Inquisitor's words replaced with a pleasant sigh.

"Mm," the elf purred as her fingers rolled the wet, stiff tip between them, "I could just play with you all day long, Buckles."

"Feel free." Herah laughed as she said the words, but beneath her good humor was a deep desire. She wanted badly to be appreciated not as a savior but as a woman, and when Sera's hands and mouth began exploring her chest, Herah was all too happy to let her take her time so she could savor the moment.

And take her time Sera did. Only after she had seemingly covered every inch of the qunari's chest with her tongue did she deign to move down to her toned stomach. Herah's spine arched as the blonde's hands caressed her hips while her tongue lavished attention on her hard abdominal muscles.

She was trying her best to just relax and enjoy the elf's attentions, but between her legs, what had started as a pleasant tingling was turning into an increasingly sharp craving. Her hips bucked of their own accord and Sera licked her lips at the reaction. "Seems like you might want a taste," she teased. "Or for me to have one."

"Sounds good," Herah gasped as the archer went to pull off her small-clothes. Underneath, her clitoris was engorged with lust, clearly visible against the dark skin and darker folds between her legs, and Sera grinned when she saw it.

"Ooh, easy to find," she quipped. "Looks fun to play with too." Her hands caressed the qunari's inner thighs while her mouth went to her clit. She took it between her lips, and as the wet heat that engulfed her most sensitive point, Herah twitched, unable to do much more than mumble out the elf's name.

Sera might have seemed careless to some, but when it came to the things she really cared about, she could be remarkably precise. It was true of archery, and clearly, it was true of sex too. Even as she sucked on the qunari's clit, her tongue kept running up and down its length, her rhythm flawless. Herah couldn't remember the last time she'd been with anyone so skillful and it felt as if all the tension of the past few months, all the burdens of expectation and command, were draining right out of her via the elf's skilled mouth.

"Maker," she sighed, bringing one hand down to stroke Sera's short, blonde hair. "You are good at this."

"Mm, gets better," the elf murmured, the sound sending pleasant vibrations down the shift of Herah's clit. Abruptly, the Inquisitor felt two slim fingers slide past her now-thoroughly soaked entrance and even as Sera kept licking her, the thrusts started, short, sharp things that took her already intense lust to greater heights.

She could feel her climax starting to build, and evidently Sera could sense it too, because the elf added a third finger, purring as the Inquisitor took it into her increasingly full sex. Sera started fucking her faster then, her tongue flying up and down the length of Herah's clit as the qunari's hips started bucking hard, pushing to get as much of her lover's fingers as she could manage. The elf was glad to accommodate her and as her slim digits slid still deeper inside the qunari, the dam finally broke. Her whole body went rigid with a massive orgasm, first tensing and then spasming again and again as she gave herself over to the pleasure she had longed for.

When it at last receded and rational thought returned, she was greeted by the feeling of Sera kissing her way back up her sweaty body. "That was good, yeah?", the elf smiled. "Course it was. 'Cause you did the thing, and made the sounds, and yeah, you definitely liked it."

"Definitely," Herah agreed, well aware that a goofy smiled covered now her face. She had needed that release even more than she'd realized and now, she wanted nothing more than to properly thank the woman who had given it to her. With a quick hand, she grabbed Sera, pulling her closer for another kiss, tasting her own musky flavor on her lover's lips. Her focus, however, was elsewhere. Her other hand sought out the elf's firm backside, a playful squeeze drawing out a high moan.

"Let me show you just how much," she whispered, her mouth escaping the kiss to run along the edge of her lover's long, slim ear. "Sensitive?", she teased when Sera gasped. "Mine are too, but I guess you'll have to find that out another time, since you were so much more interested in playing with my tits."

"They're great tits," Sera managed to get out while Herah turned her attention to the elf's own breasts, cupping the small orbs in hands that covered them entirely. She began massaging the nipples with her thumbs and her lover's nose scrunched up adorably while her thighs wrapped around the qunari's thicker one. She bucked hard against it, and in the slick movements of flesh on flesh, Herah could feel the elf's arousal warm against her skin.

Her hands took hold of Sera's waist, lifting her clean into the air, and when she opened her mouth, Herah caught her lips with her own, kissing away any protests she might have thought to give. With one arm, she held the slim elf up while her other explored between her legs. There was only a little, wispy patch of blonde hair above her sex, and her clit was not nearly so easy to locate as the qunari's. It was diamond-hard though, and when Herah finally found it and ran a single, long finger across the circular bud, her lover writhed with delight in her grasp.

"There we go," she purred, her voice husky. "That's the spot."

Sera bit her lip. "Andraste's holy tits, yes," she muttered before adding, "Inside too, though. Want you to fuck me."

"Happy to oblige." Herah slid her finger down through the elf's wet folds before teasing the opening to her pussy. In spite of her arousal, Sera was still as tight as the Inquisitor had even had, the slick inner walls squeezing down firmly on the single digit she entered her with.

"Herah." As she began to move inside her, Sera panted out her name, not her title nor her nickname and the qunari smiled at that. There was no time to enjoy that little pleasure though, because the elf began pushing her hips down against Herah's hand, unwilling to let her lover control the action entirely.

It was a hard pace Sera was setting, and the qunari enjoyed keeping up with it, especially as her lover's fluids began to coat her digits, each thrust drawing forth fresh wetness. "You want another finger?", she asked with a small smile.

"Two?" Sera's face was a mask of pleasure, eyes wide as she considered the question. "Maker, yes, two," she quickly decided and Herah brought a second long digit to her lover's entrance. This time the fit was harder. Every inch that she pushed in required careful patience, but the desperate mewls of pleasure Sera was making as she was filled more than rewarded Herah's efforts.

When, at last, she was buried fully inside, she paused, letting her lover adjust to the fullness before bringing her thumb up to her clit and caressing it. Sera pulsed around her and the Inquisitor thrust a little deeper, her fingers bottoming out inside the elf. It didn't take long after that. A few more powerful strokes and Sera came undone, writhing with delight, her screams of pleasure only muffled when she buried her face in Herah's shoulder.

The qunari didn't relent easily, answering Sera's moans and pleas for more with thrust after thrust, relishing every shudder of her body, every squeeze of her pussy around her fingers, every cry and whimper of her name. It was hard to tell quite where one climax ended and the next began, but it hardly mattered, and by the time it was done, Sera's head was slumped on Herah's chest, her sweaty blonde hair falling every which way.

Slowly, she eased her fingers out of the elf, bringing them up to her lips so she could get a taste. Her lover was tart and rich, but even the sight of Herah sucking her release off of her digits couldn't inspire much of a reaction in the exhausted Sera. Instead, all the archer managed was an soft, "So good. Rest now."

Herah nodded in agreement, rolling Sera over onto her side before pulling her arms tight around the elf's slim form. Her lover was uncharacteristically peaceful, and it was a feeling the Inquisitor couldn't have shared more. Right now, all she wanted to do was take in the littler things: the sound of Sera's breathing, the rise and fall of her chest, the smell of their lovemaking hanging in the mountain air. For a little while, she didn't have to be a Herald or an Inquisitor, just one very lucky qunari.

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><p><strong>It took a little while before we got to the first real smut, but I hope you enjoyed it. There'll be more next chapter, with a different couple.<strong>


	10. Reunion

It was long past sunset when she finally reached the inn, only the unsettling gleam of the Breech illuminating the otherwise moonless night. She had had little rest for days, and her body was feeling the effects of the long ride, soreness and hunger compounding the worries that drove her. She was no expert horsewoman, but haste had forced her hand. Neither foot nor aravel would have let her reach her destination in time; she only prayed that the finest steed her coin could purchase had done better.

Dismounting with no more than the necessary clumsiness, she handed to reins to the grizzled stable-hand who came out to greet her. If his gaze showed disdain for the shape of her ears and the markings on her face, the sight of her staff bound across her back quieted his tongue and she put the man out of her mind as she entered the inn. She had more pressing matters to attend to, and a need far greater than for some foolish human's acceptance.

The Scarlet Wyvern was as nice an inn as one could expect to find so far into the arid reaches of north-western Orlais, and after her time on the road, its common room was a welcome sight. A roaring fire rapidly banished the chill of the desert night and laughter and song filled the hall. Once, the presence of so many humans would have discomforted her, but that was another life and many years ago.

"Excuse me," she asked the stout middle-aged woman who came out to greet her, "I wonder if you've had a guest recently. Another woman, perhaps a little taller than me, not old, but with pure, white hair…"

"Merrill!" The ruddy-faced inner-keeper had no need to answer her question. From across the common room came the voice she had spent the past year and a half longing to hear. The elf spun around at once, her heart leaping halfway up her throat as she saw Ella Hawke rushing towards her.

The Champion lifted her slim body up into her arms, kissing her with rare intensity. Merrill returned the embrace as best she could while her lover's scent, currently mixed with leather and dust but still unmistakably hers, surrounded her. Beside them, the inn-keeper asked with a laugh, "I take it this is her, then?", but Merrill was unwilling to break the kiss long enough to answer.

Only when both of them were left breathless did they finally pull apart, Hawke nodding, "Yup, that's me. Isabella, if you could bring my friend some food and ale, that would be great. She must be hungry from the road."

"Of course," the inn-keeper told her with a smile, barking out an order to the kitchens. It always astounded Merrill how fast Hawke could make friends, and though a part of her wanted to protest that she was fine, and that they could move on to other things, her lover was right. She was famished, and so she let herself be led back to Hawke's table without protest.

"Isabella?", the elf asked as they sat down. Hawke had already finished her own dinner, and so there was nothing to distract them but each other.

"I know. Doesn't look much like her, does she?" The Champion's words were light, but in her eyes, Merrill could see the pain of yet another old wound. Isabella might have been vulgar and selfish, but she had also been their companion and once, they had believed, their friend. She had made their group laugh harder than anyone else could, and intrigued a shy young elf with her tales of exotic adventures and tawdry trysts, and then she had left. She ran off after the qunari attack, leaving them behind to face the unbelievable mess she had had helped to make and in spite of it all, they still missed her.

"I am more interested in looking at you, emma lath", Merrill replied. "I always am." Merrill had started to fall in love the first time she'd laid eyes on Hawke that day at the foot of Sundermount, and though the years might have added lines of sorrow to her face and cares to her shoulders, she was still the most beautiful woman in the world to the elf. Her long white hair, her bright blue eyes, and by the gods, that smile, one that seemed to contain all the warmth in the world. She couldn't resist running her long fingers over her beloved's face, and when Hawke kissed her palm, her heart melted all over again.

"I'm so glad I managed to reach you here," she told her lover, restraining her affections with the thought that they were still in public. "When I got Varric's letter, I was afraid you would be in the Anderfels before I caught up with you."

"You didn't have to come," the Champion told her apologetically. "If your people still needed your help, I would've understood."

"You needed me," she insisted. "And the clan is safe for now. The fighting between the mages and Templars is done and Corypheus does not seem interested in us." Even saying the creature's name made Merrill uneasy. Their descent through his prison had been perhaps the darkest journey the group had ever taken, and the battle against him their most desperate. Even more than the day that Anders and Meredith had burned Kirkwall, the elf had doubted they would survive. But Hawke had been by her side, brave and steadfast, and they had prevailed, vanquishing the ancient evil. Or so they had thought.

"Well, I am glad you're here," Hawke told her, but despite her smile, Merrill could see the sadness in her eyes returning. "Did Varric's letter…. Did he tell you about Stroud?"

She nodded. "He did. He told me that he gave his life helping the Inquisition to escape from the Fade."

"For me," the Champion told Merrill, sounding far older than her years. "He gave his life for me. I was going to be the one to cover our retreat, and he took my place."

In spite of the room's warmth, a shiver ran through the elf at the realization that she had almost lost Hawke. Every day they were apart, she'd worried for her love, and when the letter from Varric had arrived telling her that Corypheus was alive and they were fighting him once more, that worry had turned to fear, a fear that she now knew had almost been realized.

Before she could dwell on it any further though, Isabella appeared, the inn-keeper bearing a mug of ale and a steaming spinach pie that she set down on the table between them. "Here you go, dear. Eat up. You certainly look like you need it."

Merrill didn't have to be told twice. The sight and smell of food brought her hunger straight to the surface, and she wasted no time in plunging into her meal. It was good, and hot, and she wolfed it down with a eagerness that came from knowing that once she was done, she and Hawke could finally be alone.

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><p>Merrill pushed open the door to the Champion's room, practically dragged her lover across the threshold in her eagerness. Her kisses were hot and sure; a reminder of how far she'd come from the shy young Dalish elf that Hawke had first fallen in love with in Kirkwall. Back then, she'd had to slowly introduce her girlfriend to each new pleasure, but it had been more than worth her patience. The gasps of discovery and sighs of delight had been wonderful, and now, Hawke greatly enjoyed the confidant lover the elf had become.<p>

Right then, though, her foremost thought was that Merrill had far too much clothing on, and the Champion set to work fixing that. One by one, she peeled off layers of cloak and tunic, seeking out ever more of the elf's pale skin. "I missed you so much," she said softly as she ran kisses along the side of her lover's long neck. "There were times in the Fade I didn't know if I'd ever see you again."

Unbidden, memories of the nightmare's threats returned to her mind. "Merrill is going to die," its unseen, all-encompassing voice had told her, "And there is nothing you can do about it." The demon had know exactly the fear that preyed on her most. So many friends and loved ones were already gone: her parents, Bethany, Isabella, Anders, and now Stroud. She couldn't lose Merrill too, and with sudden desperation, she clung tighter to her lover, tears now mixed in with her kisses.

"I'm here, emma lath," Merrill whispered, stroking her hair as she tried to soothe her distress. "I will never leave your side. Not for as long as you want me there." They were words that Hawke knew well, almost the very ones that she had said to the elf long ago, when she had been at lowest.

"_You were right," Merrill whimpered, unwilling to look at her. Her lover had fled to her tiny house in the alienage, unwilling to return to Hawke's estate after the tragedy on Sundermount. The Champion had followed her though, only to find Merrill curled up in a corner, sobbing softly._

"_You were right," she babbled, all the horrible things she'd been telling herself over the last few hours flowing out of her without any filter, "And I was stupid, and childish, and, and wrong. And now the Keeper's dead, and the clan hates me, and you're going to leave because I'm such a stupid fool."_

_Hawke had been right, but winning their argument didn't matter to her anymore. It broke her heart to see Merrill this way and she knelt down next to the elf, taking her into her arms. Her fingers brushed across her face, tracing the lines of her tattoos as she assured her, "I'm not. I won't. I will never leave your side for as long you want me there."_

The words had comforted her lover then, and they did the same for Hawke now, but she needed more, needed the physical reminder that not everything she cared for was gone. She guided Merrill towards the inn's bed, covering her face with kisses even as she finished baring her lover's chest. Those small, perfect breasts that she loved so well were exposed first to her gaze, and once she laid Merrill down on the bed, to her hands and mouth as well. She worshiped them in every way she knew how, covering the pale skin with kisses, caressing the nipples with her fingers, pressing her face against their warmth.

The Champion began sucking lovingly on a erect pink nipple and Merrill ran her fingers through that gorgeous white hair, purring, "Yes, emma lath, yes." The human was always a generous lover, but at times like this, she could be especially so. Her guilt at surviving when so many around her had died could nearly overwhelm her, and doing this, attending to someone else's needs, comforted her.

Hawke was encouraged by her lover's words, slowly making her way down Merrill's slender body. She traced each line of it affectionately, running her tongue along the curve of her hip bone and down towards the place between the elf's legs that she loved so well. One finger slipped under Merrill's smalls, playing in the thin, dark hair above her sex before she removed them. The elf smelled marvelous, a mixture of sweat and her arousal that Hawke relished.

Her lover's breath was hot on her sex and Merrill's hips pushed towards her, making it easier for Hawke to capture what she sought. Perfect lips found the elf's small, hard bud and she let out a soft moan as it was taken between them, struggling to make no more noise than that. It had been so long since she'd gotten to experience that amazing mouth, and she was accustomed to her lover's expansive estate, not this small room with its thin walls.

Hearing Merrill's little mewls of delight as she was eaten out, Hawke felt her nerves begin to relax. Her own body was beginning to heat up, her pale skin flushing with long-denied desire, but she could wait for her own pleasure until she'd brought it to the woman she loved. Above her, the elf's back arched and Hawke brought a single finger up to her sex. It was as tight as she remembered, and she began not by fucking Merrill hard, but instead caressing her pussy, curling her digit to stroke her sensitive front wall.

"So good," the elf moaned, "You're always so good." She could feel the pressure swiftly building in her body, Hawke's lips and finger drawing her climax to the surface. It had been so long since she'd had real release and as it finally drew into sight, her desire was making her as needy as she could remember being. "Don't stop," she urged her lover, "Don't ever. I want to… I want to come for you." It had taken practice for the shy elf to be willing to say her desires aloud, but Hawke enjoyed it so much that it was worth the effort.

"I want that too," the Champion cooed, her finger still working inside Merrill as she spoke, "Want to feel your body tense in my arms, feel you tighten around my finger. Will you do that for me, my love?"

"Yes," Merrill promised, her words slipping into barely-coherent elven as she approached the edge. She could do nothing but repeat, "Ar nuvenin, ar nuvenin…" I want, I need, over and over again as she melted, her clit throbbing uncontrollably, her wetness coating her beloved's hand, her fingers clutching desperately at the human's hair and shoulders.

Only when Merrill finally stopped trembling beneath her did Hawke slide out of her lover, savoring a final taste of the elf on her fingers. It was earthy and sweet all at the same time, and as she sucked her release off, Merrill purred, "Oh, emma lath. Ma serranas."

"You are very welcome," Hawke smiled affectionately. "It was my pleasure."

"I would still like to thank you in other ways," the elf told her, normal speech returning along with her desire to reciprocate. "It has been so long since I could."

"Far too long," the Champion agreed, ridding herself of her own clothes with a haste born of desire. "But don't worry, I'm not going anywhere either." Merrill's hands began to slide over her body, caressing her shoulders and massaging her breasts, and when they slid between her legs to stroke her sex, all she could think was, "Not again. Not anymore." Wherever they might be, together was where they belonged.

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><p><strong>It's so hard to get Isabella to come back if you're not romancing her, so this time, she didn't. Hope you enjoyed Hawke and Merrill's reunion. Next, we're back to Sera and Herah. And formal wear.<strong>


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